With the staff taking the wounded soldier straight through into emergency at the hospital, Maki shared the worries of a secondary device discretely by requesting a scan be carried out on the man’s abdomen. He also informed the staff they’d need to sign non-disclosure forms over the findings.

It took nearly an hour for a small group from C3 to arrive, headed by one of the CO’s. With all the adrenaline in his system, Maki had forgotten he had the broken cuff still on his wrist until the man brought it up. Seeing he’d been injured in the removal, the alpha patiently went and had his wounds treated with all traces gone in a few minutes. With actual senior officers on the scene, Maki accepted the offer of a ride back to base. He was bloody and bloody exhausted. When he’d seen himself in the mirror of the room where he’d had his wrist treated he finally saw how bad he looked… and he’d gone and appeared on live television looking that way. Tatsumi would be so worried if he could see him. He’d also clear forgotten about the comms in his ear until he climbed into the back of the armoured car and felt a slight itch. Taking out the comms he set it aside on the seat, then closed his eyes. The first thing he wanted to do was take a shower. The second thing was to call Mina… but until he heard that the team from the armoured transporter were safe, he’d have to bare things the way they were.

Arriving back on base, Maki tiredly climbed out of the car, leaving the earpiece behind as the effort to go back for it felt too much. He knew they’d want to debrief him immediately, so headed in, well aware of why people were staring as he went. If only he’d been carrying his comms, then he could have started his report on the day while waiting at the hospital. Grimy, gritty, and exceptionally smelly, Maki found the office he was sharing and headed to the worktop he’d been allowed access. Until he knew who to report to, making sure that he got the whole incident down correctly was now the priority as he’d actually expected someone awaiting his return, and not to be left wandering around when he was bound to be yelled at for appearing on television and needed an urgent debriefing. Damn, if only he could hear his husband’s voice then he’d have the energy to work, but there were still a few days of Tatsumi’s estrus.

Without his comms, Maki could only state the order of events without the time, yet surveillance of the Justice Hall would fill that blank in when the footage was compared to the statement. Pressing his thumb down on the screen to sign off that what he’d stated was his official statement over the events and exactly what had happened from his perspective, he did wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything about Ranchel’s secondary objective of the day seeing he wasn’t meant to know, then decided honesty was the best policy. One the harder things was when he had to keep details hidden from Tatsumi. His husband understood all too well. If Tatsumi asked and he said he couldn’t answer, then there was no pushing there at all. But Maki still wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell Tatsumi everything because he understood all too well why he’d been seen as kid back in Rage Fire and not the mature adult he’d thought himself. He also now understood why Tatsumi had been so hesitant about sleeping with him before graduation and why he’d worried for their relationship. Being apart was goddamn hard… at least he was lucky there. Everytime he felt things were going to collapse and break, he had his tattoo right there to remind him that Tatsumi would always be on his side.

Sending the statement through to the base CO, barely five minutes passed before two officers were sent to collect him. To send the message through he had to have access to comms, or a stable line, and the message would have shown that his statement was submitted on the base’s secure network. Following the officers, he was led to the infirmary wing, then into a well equipped lab of sorts where another CO waited

“Sato?”

Saluting politely, Maki reported

“Sato, Maki!”

The CO didn’t look pleased

“We expected you two hours ago upon arrival”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. I was not met or made aware that you were waiting for me”

“After all major incidents those who are present must present for neural networking”

You could lie on paper but it was much harder to lie with brainwaves. What he wanted to do was enquire how everyone else was, but that could distort his answers to give an invalid readout for his answers 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. Had I been informed I would have presented immediately”

“As someone on the fast track it is expected to know such basic procedures. Please remove your belt, boots, and jacket, then lay upon the table for connection”

Wisely his mouth didn’t pull another “Skylark”. He’d had the procedure done twice before, though that wasn’t for such a major incident and instead related to land clearing. It was very much the same as mental load training, only this time he was expected to hold the mental load and reply while his brain activity was read. Entering mental loading training while this exhausted wasn’t his favourite thing in the world, but once it was done it’d be over with, then he’d be able to take a shower and potentially gain access to his comms again to let Mina and Eve know he was safe and that he hadn’t been covered in his own blood.

Lying down, Maki slowed his breathing and waited for the familiar sting of the needle. A truth serum and mental adjuster was always administer, then another injection to nullify the serum was administered at the end of things. Above him the headgear lowered, and the attending physician moved to set it in place. He was used to the needle then the headgear but on C3 they seemed to do things differently. Back on J3 he’d have been able to take himself to see old Quin, then he’d have been passed on, but his wasn’t his base so there was no point even trying to make a joke about it.

Settled, drugged, and finally taking mental load, Maki soon found himself in one of the worst connections he’d ever had as he had no way to stop the memory vividness, and when it came to how he’d run back out to grab the scummy soldier, the question came fast and looped as if he were suspected as being involved and not rushing to save a guy he’d thought was one of his brother’s in uniform. Seeing the, blood, bone and muscle was the second worst thing he’d ever seen in his life… with Tatsumi being broken hearted being the worst, so in graphic terms he’d definitely dodged a lot of bullets for this to be his first truely stomach turning experience… no, now he was forgetting Li nearly being blown up… but during that they had front line medics who handled all the injured people…

The attending physician brought him out of his spiralling thoughts

“Mister Sato, please try to stay focused”

“‘m sorry. It’s not every day you see man’s leg blown off… it’s stuck in my mind. The blood and bone… and the flesh hanging there…”

“I think we’ll move on from that. Please proceed and tell us about inside the Justice Hall”

Even after moving on from the man’s leg, the rest of the questioning process seemed to drag on and on. When he reached how he’d talked to the man he nearly fell into a loop talking about Tatsumi and had to be prompted again. He also had some very strong words over Ranchel to say, but they wouldn’t let him talk about that either. By the end of it, Maki wasn’t sure he knew up from down anymore, he didn’t have the energy to get back up once he’d been given the counter serum and the headgear was removed. The female CO sounding more than a little annoyed with him

“Mister Sato, if you’re quite done, you can return to quarters”

Suzu wouldn’t have kicked him out of bed. Exerting far too much effort, Maki drew himself up

“Yes, ma’am. What happened with the armoured transport?”

“They returned to base with no incident”

Thank god for that

“And the mech division?”

“Similarly being debriefed. You’re not going to ask about his Imperial Highness?”

“No, ma’am. If you’ll now excuse me, I need to call my family”

“Your comms will be withheld until tomorrow. I’m sure you can understand why”

Nope. Seeing how he wasn’t involved in what had happened, he didn’t see why he had to be penalised. He’d have argued that too if he didn’t desperately need a shower

“Yes, ma’am”

***

Maki was dozing when he felt a warm body slip into the bed behind him. Having absolutely no appetite he’d skipped dinner and favoured taking his mood to bed. For a moment he thought it was Tatsumi, but then remembered that he was on a whole other planet

“Li?”

“I’m here”

This wasn’t the first time Li had slid into bed next to him… though his best friend only did when he was having the worst of days. The day they’d had definitely fell into that category 

“You good?”

“Not really”

“Wanna talk?”

“No”

“Okay. I’m glad you’re safe”

“You left me hanging all day”

Ah. He had, hadn’t he? He’d not been in contact with Li since giving him orders… and he should have expected that Li would want to talk

“I’m sorry. Thanks for listening to me today and for having my back”

“I don’t know how you ran back out… I couldn’t have done that”

Li sounded so angry at himself that Maki’s heart broke a little

“I couldn’t take his screams”

“You still moved”

“You moved your mech. I had the easier job…”

“Don’t lie to make me feel better”

“I’m not. Once I was in the hall I was safe. You guys had to stand out there”

“I hate it. I nearly hurled in my mech”

“I’m sorry you had to see that too, but thank you for protecting me. See, I told you I didn’t trust myself not to help”

“He needed it. I wonder what happened to him?”

Li obviously didn’t know what he knew. Maki choosing his word carefully

“He got to hospital safely. I stayed with him until they took him through for surgery”

“That’s good, man…”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you everything. Ranchel didn’t help and I didn’t make things better”

“Once we stopped firing everything died right down. Things would have been worse”

“But they weren’t. You need sleep, and so do I”

“Yeah… Molly’s okay. I saw her after we got let out”

“Good. I don’t have my comms so I couldn’t ask”

“They’ve got all our comms again. I’m thinking I need a second one”

“They’d probably take that too”

“Yeah. I miss home”

“So do I. Tatsumi said he’d cook for us”

“I want to go back already”

“A few more days and we’ll be back on J10”

“Yeah… can I stay here?”

“Yeah, I could use my best friend too”

“Don’t tell the guys?”

“I won’t… I’m not injured physically but it was one hell of a day… if you see the footage it’s not my blood”

“You really are good at this”

Maki wasn’t sure he was. He’d run off to help the man involved in creating the mess… He’d also hidden safely away, lied to Li, messed up on television, back talked to Ranchel, not reported immediately for debriefing, and was so mentally drained he couldn’t take care of his body by eating dinner. He’d wanted to be out there in his mech, but Li had that covered. Li was his eyes, ears, mouth and shield. So no, he was no good at this on his own, he’d only managed to luck his way through things and handle things thanks to Li. Blindly he reached back and patted Li’s leg

“Not without my best friend”

“I don’t know about that”

“I do. I know I have to make calls, but those calls… it’s because you’re there and I know I can trust you that I can make them”

“I don’t feel like I do much”

“You’re way stronger and cooler than you think. Today was shit, and tomorrow might be too, but you’ve got my back and I have yours. Come on, let’s sleep”

Both of them had trouble sleeping. Li tossed and turned a lot before he started snoring sounding like a chainsaw next to Maki’s ear, and now Li had woken his brain up, Maki found it hard to fall back into a doze let alone actual sleep. At 6 am the first base buzzer went off through the speakers to wake up everyone who’d over slept, or in their case, the people who’d had trouble sleeping, waking them up.

Groggily the pair got up and dressed, before heading to the canteen. Normally half the room would be buzzing with life, and the other half the room would be those silent as they waited for the caffeine to kick in and cursed everyone functioning. That morning there where whispers everywhere and Maki felt far too many eyes on him and Li as they joined the queue for breakfast. All he wanted was two cups of the muck the passed off as coffee, but Maki knew he’d gone and made a spectacle of himself the day before and everyone had been talking about him and Li before they’d walked in… worst yet, the thing they had probably talking about was his interview and how “eagerly” he’d cooperated with Ranchel.

By the time Maki had his coffee safely in his grip, the whispers had turned to talking again. Sliding into his chair, with Li sitting across from him, C3 didn’t waste their time in sending someone over to suss things out

“Oi. You. Sato. What happened to that man from yesterday? No one knows what’s going on?”

Why couldn’t they let him coffee first? Maki wouldn’t have gone pestering them with questions, let alone pestering them with questions before coffee

“He was taken to hospital, that’s all I know”

“Then how did you know it wasn’t a rebel attack? How did you get on camera? You told everyone it wasn’t a rebel attack”

“The camera crew happened to be in there with Ranchel when I carried that soldier in. She rushed over to question me”

“But you must have known? You must know something they aren’t telling us”

Maki cast a glance around and found everyone listening in. Closing his eyes, the alpha counted to three, then opened them

“All I wanted was to go out and provide support yet I didn’t have my mech. As for the blast, I saw something at ground level and my body moved before my mind. I don’t know what was going on but I felt like it wasn’t the rebels”

“How could you know that?! Those people are savages!”

Maki raised his gaze to the soldier looking down at him, the man sounded disgusted that he would give them a break

“That’s not my place to say. They’ll be judged by those far more experienced than I”

“How can you say that after what they’ve done!?”

The whole base had the wrong end of the stick. Maki wanted to truth bomb them, and also knew he couldn’t

“Because people do shit things when they’re scared and hurting. Yesterday happened, it can’t unhappen and I don’t know much of anything. I returned to base after the soldier was admitted. Speaking of shit things, calling out a man who hasn’t had his coffee yet it pretty shit too”

“Are you mocking us?!”

“Not at all. Ranchel and the CO’s are investigating, why would a lowly soldier like me have access to anything they’re doing? This isn’t my planet, my home, or anything. All I had was my gut feeling this wasn’t the rebels, and both leaders… you could tell this wasn’t what they wanted now negotiations had started”

Disgust stayed written all over the soldiers features as he clenched his hands into fists

“Stay the fuck away from us until you leave. You’re a disgrace to all of us serving and if you had any respect you’d turn in your uniform and fuck off to where you came from”

As the soldier stormed off, Maki picked up his coffee cup and slumped back in his seat to finally enjoy his caffeine. Li asking

“Are you sure you should have handled it that way?”

“What other way is there? I don’t have a clue what’s going through the minds of our CO’s or that pain in the arse”

“Yeah… but… never mind… you couldn’t say if you did and they said not to”

“What I know is like an inch more than everyone else. Like you know more about what happened outside the hall than I do. It’s all up to our commanding officers now”

“If they keep bullying you let me know and I’ll take care of them”

That would never happen. Maki would rather take the beating than let them lay a finger on his best friend 

“Don’t worry. We’ll be going home soon… keep an eye on Molly and anyone else we like. I’m not expecting them to drop this, yet I’m also not expecting them to risk their arses and to start something else. Hopefully their CO will step up and tell everyone what the hell yesterday was all about”

“Yeah, man… Hey, after this do you want to go see if there’s any information on that soldier you took to hospital?”

Maki didn’t want to. He’d already lost a good belt to that bastard… but again, he couldn’t say that

“Sure. I’m hoping that things went smoothly”

“Okay… now drink your coffee. That guy had balls of steel picking a fight with you before you got your coffee”

“I’m not that dependent”

“Oh yes you are…”

“I can live”

“You can, but you’re much nicer after”

“Tatsumi wouldn’t complain”

“No, because he needs his coffee too. When you two get married again I’m getting you guys a fancy coffee maker”

Maki perked up for a moment at the idea, then quickly rejected it. Once they were settled and had their baby, Tatsumi would have so much on his hands that adding to his list of chores was cruel. That wasn’t to say Maki wouldn’t be there right beside him for all it, yet with a baby how often would they get the chance to clean properly, let alone remember to clean out a coffee machine? Besides, there was the honeymoon to think of to and they couldn’t take a coffee machine on that. The alpha shook his head

“I’d rather a dozen jars of instant. I don’t need buttons in the way”

“But what if you only had to push one button for all the coffee you could ever need?”

“Then I’d have to clean it too… or Tatsumi would have to clean it. Nah, a dozen good jars is better”

“I’m just going to buy both”

“You’re not going to stop, are you?”

“Nope”

“I didn’t think so. We’ll just return it to you when you get married”

“You can’t return it to me, that’s not how a gift works”

“Why not? Once it’s gifted it becomes my property and then once it’s my property I have the right to to decide what to do with it”

“Noooooo…”

With his back towards the canteen door, Maki didn’t see who was coming and going. Not that he would have given things a second glance

“Sato! You’re wanted by the CO!”

Jumping at his name being called, Maki couldn’t fight being wanted in front of everyone. Whoever was calling him must have been in the same mind as the soldier who’d already called him out, and that was why he felt the need to make it public. Li watched as Maki got to his feet

“It’s okay. Make sure you find Molly”